


an eerie sight

by scatteredmoonlight



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, M/M, Rescue Missions, True Love's Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2020-10-24 11:42:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20705420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scatteredmoonlight/pseuds/scatteredmoonlight
Summary: Quentin is not dead but held captive by a demon. Eliot goes to heroically save him.





	an eerie sight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [angelette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelette/gifts).

**Summary: **Quentin is not dead but held captive by a demon in the mirror verse. Eliot goes to heroically save him. 

Quentin slipped his card through the meter and stepped through into the afterlife… 

...only to wake up surrounded by glass on the floor, just where he last breathed air as he tossed the Monster into the mirror. He surged up to a stand, stumbling back. “Holy shit. Holy shit, I’m alive.” He burst into hysterical laughter. “Shit.” 

Like anyone who didn’t want to be stuck in-between worlds, Quentin turned on his heel and booked it for the exit, only the second he turned around, he was met with a ghastly vision of a creature. Its black body was marred with red scars, gleaming eyes watching him silently. 

*** 

Julia slapped down a binder filled with notes on the coffee table of the Physical Kids Cottage, running two hands through her hair and sniffing back whatever sleep deprivation had done to her nose. “Anchor demon,” she said. “It’s keeping Quentin hostage. I know this. Read the binder. It explains everything. Anchor demons latch onto a person’s soul and keep them trapped in an etherworld, the only way to get them is to enter the etherworld — with something just as strong as the demon’s magic.” 

“And we get that stronger bond… how?” said Kady, as she reached for the binder. Penny looked over her shoulder as she flipped through it. Then she landed on a random page and Penny let out a low whistle. 

“Guys, you gotta check this out.” Penny made to pass the binder to Alice, only Margo swooped in and snatched it. 

Her eyebrow hooked up. “Well, fuck me.” 

Eliot didn’t notice when all eyes turned to him. He sat with his now renowned vacant expression as he lounged in one of Quentin’s old zipped up hoodies, the hood drawn up. Penny wound up shaking his shoulder lightly. 

“Earth to El,” said Margo. “We need you.” 

He looked over at the binder. “Why me?” 

Julia swept across the room to him, slipping to crouch in front of him. “Remember when we got really drunk on the night Q died and you told us about the peaches and plums? I think that’s just what we need to break the anchor demon’s spell.” She tugged on the sleeve of the hoodie. “And you don’t even have to take this thing off. It’s better if you didn’t.” 

*** 

Eliot’s mission didn’t need to be told to him twice (although it was, and many more times, given the pressing urgency of it). He had to solidify a bond with Quentin in the netherworld that far surpassed that of the demon, the hoodie as a corporeal symbol that connected them together. It might have been Fillory’s influence, or even his own need, but Eliot knew what he was going to do. He was going to tear that demon apart, or at least subdue them, and kiss Quentin like he should have done all those months ago in Fillory after they came back from the pocket timeline. How about that for a surpassing bond? 

The binder spoke of _true love_, and there was nothing truer than being Fillory married with a kid. Armed with only a hoodie and magic, Eliot went to the fateful mirror that Quentin never returned from and had the game plan drilled into him by Julia. 

“You go in and find him,” she said. “Anchor demons don’t care about the quantity of souls, but the quality, so you should be inherently protected from it. Just get Q and get out.” 

Margo came over with mousse in one hand and a flask in the other. “Okay, now I’m only going this once,” she said, passing Eliot the flask, which he drank generously from. She pumped mousse into her hands and fluffed it into Eliot’s hair. “You knock that dead boy alive, you hear me? You kiss that motherfucker like true love’s going out of style and you have the jawline to save it.” She stood back and looked him over. “I can’t work miracles with that sweatshirt, but maybe love can transcend it.” 

“Thanks, Bambi.” Without later adieu, Eliot turned to face his reflection. Then with one big step for mankind, he walked into the mirror. 

On the inside was nothing like how it was described. He’d expected a house, but instead it looked like something out of a demon’s stomach. A mysterious grey ooze poured out of cracks in a shadowy wall, cobwebs on the ceiling, junk baked into the floors and wainscotting. Eliot covered his nose with his sleeve because of the smell — oh, the smell was like nothing else. He immediately regretted drinking before walking in, the flask in his hoodie pocket a nauseous weight. He crept through the foul mess, looking inside ajar doors for Quentin. 

He remembered what Julia said about the demon not being concerned with him, so he called out for Q. 

“Quentin!” No answer returned. “Quentin!” 

As he walked further on, music softly began to play, music that wasn’t quiet or pensive at all. “_I was working in the lab late one night when my eyes beheld an eerie sight._” His steps grew more measured, his fingers flexed at his side to perform magic at the drop of a hat. The cobwebs grew thicker along the ceiling until the detailed frieze was barely seen beneath the dust and dirt caught in the webs. The hallway turned a corner and at the end of the new corrido, a blue glow emitted from beneath the edges of a tall wooden door painted the same pale grey as the walls. The music came louder: “_For my monster from his slab began to rise. And suddenly to my surprise… he did the mash, he did the monster mash._” 

Eliot stopped by the door, hand poised over the knob, and contemplated whether he ought to touch it. He tested out his magic, which blessedly worked, the knob turning on its own and pitching forward. At the sight of what welcomed him, Eliot reached for the flask and swigged. 

Plastic skeletons were dancing with suits topped with jack-o-lanterns heads, a disco ball swirling from the ceiling — cobwebs everywhere, of course, because it seemed demons hated cleaning, even at parties — and there was even a punch bowl with carrots sticks by a table. A sign hung from the ceiling: HOMECOMING. At the center of the dancefloor was Quentin, dressed in a suit of his own, a skeleton holding onto him with its head tucked against his shoulder. Quentin hadn’t seemed to have noticed the door now opened, nor did any of the skeletons and jack-o-lanterns. Eliot pocketed the flask and entered. The door shut behind him on its own. 

Eliot crossed the dance floor, only he didn’t get very far. A skeleton appeared out of nowhere and took him into its arms, and despite everyone swaying to the music, the skeleton insisted on doing the polka. Eliot kept tripping over his feet and grew more irritated as the seconds passed, because even though they traveled the dancefloor quickly, they seemed to be going everywhere but toward Quentin. 

Once they got close to the sidelines, Eliot wretched his hands free and spun out, crashing into the table with the punch bowl. The drink swished around in the bowl, the ladle shaking. Better prepared now, Eliot readied his hands and whisked away any skeleton that attempted to dance with him again, though the jack-o-lanterns with the lit candles for eyes gave him pause. The last thing he wanted was to burn this dancefloor down. 

He came up to Quentin, tapping his shoulder. “May I have this dance?” 

Quentin jolted, then swung around. Relief softened his frantic features. “_Eliot?_ What are you — are you dead, too?” 

Eliot shook his head. “I’m afraid this is a rescue.” 

Quentin shook off the skeleton and immediately they latched onto themselves, a deterrent to anyone who had any ideas. 

“_The zombies were having fun. The party had just begun. The guests included Wolfman, Dracula, and his son._” 

Quentin’s fingers curled over Eliot. “Is this my jacket?” 

Awkward. Eliot tried to muster up some excuse, but everyone knew he wouldn’t be caught dead in sweats, not since high school gym class when his livelihood depended on it. He deflected by going for the jugular, by saying everything he’d meant to say and should have ages ago in Fillory. “Q, I have a confession to make. It’s about why it’s just me here trying to save you and not anyone else.” 

“Okay?” 

He wished he’d taken something from the punch bowl. Admitting feelings was harder than passing his finals while running on the fumes of coffee and cigarettes. “Remember last time we were in Fillory? When I — ” 

Quentin tensed. “Yeah. I remember.” 

“I lied. Back then. I was a liar.” His vocal chords refused to make any noise, the red blinking lights in his mind to shut up, but he owed to Quentin - more than just for the sake of breaking the demon’s curse on him - to continue his confession. “I love you. I want to give this a shot. What we have, what we have had, is worth it.” 

Quentin slowly relaxed into him again. His eyes softened into something vulnerable, something that Eliot needed to protect. “You mean that, seriously?” 

“I mean it. I'm in if you are.” 

Quentin broke out in nervous laughter. “Fuck yes, I'm in.” 

Eliot grabbed a fistful of Quentin’s suit. “Peaches and plums, baby.” 

Quentin leaned in, smiling and rubbing foreheads briefly. “Peaches and plums,” he whispered, and as sure and true and certain as their fateful kiss in Fillory, Quentin enveloped Eliot in an embrace and kissed him. 

It took Eliot by pleasant surprise — after all, it was his mission to kiss him — but quickly he melted into Quentin’s arms. He kept thinking — this is more than just a mission, more than just any kiss. This was certainty over the proof of concept, this was plunging into the deep unknown, facing his fears, conquering anxiety over the inevitable. His fingers curled around Quentin’s suit, their noses rubbing lightly as he shifted to deepen the kiss between them, pouring in the forty year long love he didn’t understand and would probably never into that kiss. Part of him didn’t believe this was real; part of him expected to awaken in bed like he always did after dreams like this, alone and aching with a longing that would never be met. But he’d felt the pressure of the skeleton’s hold on him as they danced; felt the emotion in Quentin as they kissed; felt the pleasure of his touch. He mumbled a little something against Quentin’s lips, but neither stopped to parse it. 

All around them, cracks of light appeared in the floorboards, walls, ghostly shadows seeping past the cobwebs. The disco ball glowed in an effervescent glimmer of chromatic light. They broke apart for air, and the light rained all over them, bathing them in a bright white, and when the light vanished, it revealed Margo, Julia, Penny, and Kady standing around the mirror as if they’d just seen Eliot walk through it. 

Eliot hugged Quentin close, tucking his head to his shoulder and breathing in his scent. 

“Damn,” said Kady. “It actually worked.” 

“Of course, it did,” said Penny. “With Julia and them being them, it never could’ve failed.” 

But Quentin and Eliot ignored them, focusing only on each other. 


End file.
